It is true. In the days leading up to the 5th, shoes are put out, often with a carrot for sinterklaas’ horse, and songs sang by the little believers. At night zwarte piet will put in candy (pepernoten) a chocolate letter or a small gift.
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HOLY HECK!
My ABSOLUTE respect.
Great stuff there, both the wooden giant and the bonding time with your son.
He’s never going to forget that
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Deep in the recesses of my dusty brain are snippets of footage of young Lucasfilm creatives stop-filming AT-AT models on a tabletop Hoth. Your wooden version takes me back to when I first realized how it was done. Now, please, make a little 5 second movie for your fans!
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Been a year now without a smoke. First 6 months was quite the struggle.
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Great streak. Have you already calculated the amount of money you saved?
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And now you find it strange you ever did that, don’t you? The awful smell of stale tobacco smoke, the improved sense of tase and smell, the improvement in endurance…
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Not to forget, reduced risk of cardiovascular disease…
I hate to be contrary. But none of this happened for me. I still like the smell (the smoke itself not so much) my taste never changed and my endurance never changed. Not one bit. Its odd. I always waited for these things to come but it never did
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I was similar. Taste and smell definitely improved for me though.
Endurance. Hard to say? When I gave up, I was still in the Army & in my late 20’s doing at least an hour of hard PT every day. Even as a pack-a-day smoker I could still run 5km in about 20 minutes and do the 15km CFT in well under the allotted 1.5 hours.
Smell. Not so much cigarettes, but if I get even a whiff of pipe tobacco or a cigar, even these days and I want one.
I’m nearly 30 years without smoking now. Similar to @Harry_Bumcrack i was exercising a lot playing and training amateur football without issue so didn’t notice any change in how I felt.
The main difference was smell and lack of morning cough, not coming home from a night out stinking of stale cigarettes.
I still miss the habit, like an echo of an old friend, particularly after a nice meal with a whiskey/brandy.
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Took me a year to break the habit and except for one setback 6 months after I quit when I had to put my dog down I have not had the urge to have one.
As far as the smell goes I have two conditions. When I know I have to go into a smoking environment I am able to control my reaction but if someone walks up on me and I smell the smoke without any warning it will almost cause me to upchuck.
Even having been smoke free for just over 25 years if the windows are down on my car I can’t count the number of times I have caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and when I look around to find the offender they are several cars back.
I always thought that story about a reformed smoker having an extreme aversion to the smell and the ability to catch a whiff of the smell when even a blood hound might miss it as an over exaggeration but for me it ended up being right on the money.
Wheels
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It’s a small and very personal thing but… After years of training I finally achieved complete parity with my legs when double bass-drumming. Seems like a small thing but now I can finally hold 480 BPM indefinitely and 560 for a couple of minutes.
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You may know that I’m comfortable building things… in software.
But lately I’ve been putting a bit of effort into some hardware projects. It’s not fast, I routinely realize I should have done things differently, but there is no version control, I’m the git.
First I built a frame to hang over the old (70s) but big radiator in my office, painted it, screwed on 10 Arctic P14 PWM fans and attached this thing:
Now we can set the radiator temp lower and heat more constantly so the floor heating downstairs is more comfortable, the gas heater is more efficient and my office heats up just as quickly at 40 as it did at 70°C radiator temp. When it’s set to boost mode during breakfast.
This also means we can go all electric and get rid of gas as soon as a heat pump model appears that is fit for our modest house.
In the foreground is the next, slightly bigger project. The basic frame is there, now to attach everything in a somewhat adjustable way. And cutting a piece out of the foam part of the seat.
I have very limited alu profiles so will mostly be relying on whatever leftover pieces of wood are in the attic. I have to find a smart way to use the profiles for things like the stick column so I can adjust it (ideally up/down, fwd/bwd and tilt). Haven’t figured that part out yet.
Having 2 vertical columns on the centerline where the L-shaped stick column can plug in at different heights would probably work. If I can fit that in and make it not too wobbly.
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Well done indeed! I’d say some sort of L-shaped construction for the alu profiles so you can adjust to your hearts’ content?
Pro-tip: always sand down the edges of the bits you’ve just cut. It makes them easier to live with.
The dutch word for ‘to sand down’ is ‘schuren’. Yup.
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Mad congratulations! That looks both very solid and ordinate! Very well done!
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What could be more boring than a tow-hitch? Not much. I’m not gonna lie. This was a struggle. Mistakes were made. Despite all that, even the wiring works to my everlasting shock.
Why did I install a tow-hitch on a 6-speed GTI? Hopefully there’ll be more to report in about 5 weeks.
Yes, it’s ugly but the hitch is detachable and totally hidden when not in use. It’s a pretty nifty bit of kit from a company called Stealth.
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Good job. I look forward to seeing why you will soon be wearing the chrome off that tow ball.
Nice job!
I can do mechanical work on my car. I can do IC electronics. Car electrical work, forget it!! 
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I’m fine ‘adding to’ or replacing. I’ve wired up LED taillights and indicators on my 4x4. I ran into trouble adding spotlights to my old Navara, until I managed to download a wiring diagram and discovered that the high beam wire was a different colour for the left and right… WTF!
Tracing a short circuit. Not a chance.
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